Other News and References

Other Resources

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Yes, I know change is hard and people often complain just because things are "different" (that's not my case, I'm really trying to give it a fair try and make it work); yes, I admit the old interface was in dire need of deep renovation; yes, I'm all for the new interface, as it sure looks like it has a lot of potential.

But...

There's still lots to be done.

I usually keep my blogs with scheduled posts, so my readers will always have something to read even if I fail to write a post that day. So, my blogs are usually preceded by a few dozen scheduled posts in the posts listing.

Now, look at the next two screens and tell me which makes it easier to see which one has the scheduled posts and where they are?

In the old interface, the scheduled posts "jump to view" in their own aligned column and orange color; in the new blogger interface, the scheduled tag jumps around like a regular tag, and the focus (orange color) is given to the regular tags (which, in my humble opinion, should have a neutral color - surely not more "important" than the post title itself.)

The other aspect, as I've noted before, is the wasted space. I thought it happened by chance, but it looks like it was carefully calculated... as the new interfaces uses up exactly twice the space per post compared to the old one!
Meaning, you now see half as much in the same screen than before:

I can't see the point in having so much wasted space, which - for my regular use - is extremely inconvenient, as I liked being able to see which posts I had scheduled for the next days, as well as the recently posted titles, without having to scroll around the page or moving back and forth between pages. (And also, please add a "navigation" bar in the bottom of the page. There's nothing worst than scrolling to the bottom of the page and then having no way to quickly move to the next page.)

So, my suggestions are:

1) Please leave the scheduled/draft tag identifications in their own aligned column as you previously had

2) Please let us decide which "density" we want to use.
Just like you let us decide to see 10, 25, 50, 100 posts per page, please allow us to see it in "high/medium/low" densities. Where "high" mimics the old spacing, offering twice the number of visible posts per "area" compared to the new one with all its white space. (In that case, the edit/delete could show up inline just as before - though I don't know if it's such a good idea having the delete/edit placed next to each other - in the old one, the "delete" was far off, preventing any accidental activation)

For me, that would take care of 90% of my "problems" with the new interface.